Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone
- Автор: Гэблдон Диана
- Серия: Outlander #9
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: Delacorte Press
- ISBN: 978-1-473-51900-8
- Жанр: Исторические приключения
Электронная книга - «Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone». Краткое содержание книги:
The past may seem the safest place to be . . . but it is the most dangerous time to be alive. . . .
Jamie Fraser and Claire Randall were torn apart by the Jacobite Rising in 1746, and it took them twenty years to find each other again. Now the American Revolution threatens to do the same. It is 1779 and Claire and Jamie are at last reunited with their daughter, Brianna, her husband, Roger, and their children on Fraser’s Ridge. Having the family together is a dream the Frasers had thought impossible. Yet even in the North Carolina backcountry, the effects of war are being felt. Tensions in the Colonies are great and local feelings run hot enough to boil Hell’s teakettle. Jamie knows loyalties among his tenants are split and it won’t be long until the war is on his doorstep. Brianna and Roger have their own worry: that the dangers that provoked their escape from the twentieth century might catch up to them. Sometimes they question whether risking the perils of the 1700s—among them disease, starvation, and an impending war—was indeed the safer choice for their family. Not so far away, young William Ransom is still coming to terms with the discovery of his true father’s identity—and thus his own—and Lord John Grey has reconciliations to make, and dangers to meet . . . on his son’s behalf, and his own. Meanwhile, the Revolutionary War creeps ever closer to Fraser’s Ridge. And with the family finally together, Jamie and Claire have more at stake than ever before.
“Oh.” The news was a shock, only because she’d quite forgot the small matter of Ian’s former wife. “That’s … very good of him.”
Ian lifted one shoulder.
“Aye, well, it’s manners to send word, if it’s a formal visit—and this is,” he added, glancing at her. “But ye’re right, it’s good of him to go himself. I dinna ken whether it’s respect for Uncle Jamie, or for Wakyo’teyehsnonhsa—”
“He thinks highly of her, then.” Rachel tried to make that a statement and not a question, but Ian was sensitive to tones of voice.
“She’s one of his people, his family,” he said simply. “She was with him in Unadilla, the last time I saw her. Long before you and I were wed.” He turned to the window again, shading his eyes against the light.
“Where d’ye think Silvia’s gone?”
No more than a moment’s thought supplied the answer.
“She’s gone to get her daughters,” Rachel said, with certainty. Ian stared at her.
“Is she in any condition to ride?”
“Absolutely not.” Agitation made Rachel stiffen, and Oggy dug his fingers into her breast in order to hold on. “Ow!”
“I’d best go find her then. Give Mrs. Brant my apologies about her dinner.”
85
A Moonlicht Flicht
IAN PAUSED TO PUT on his bearskin jacket—there was only a haze in the sky, but it was the lavender color that foretold snow, and the air was chilling fast—but didn’t bother to arm himself beyond the knife in his belt. Even if Gabriel Hardman was a lapsed Quaker, he didn’t think a maimed man on crutches would be a difficulty. He was glad that he hadn’t roached his hair for this visit; if he had to ride to Canajoharie and back in the cold and snow, his own pelt would serve him well enough.
He strode out of the house, heading for the barn where they’d left their horses. Silvia wasn’t a good rider, and even if she’d managed to saddle and bridle her horse alone, she wouldn’t have got far.
He’d heard the random bangs of pistol fire, but hadn’t paid attention. His mother hailed him, though, and he saw that she and the Sachem had had their contest: a grubby handkerchief was pinned to a huge, bare oak, perforated with singed and blackened holes.
Jenny was flushed from the cold, and her cap had come off when she threw back the hood of her cloak. She was groping behind her head in search of it, and laughing at something the Sachem had said to her, and despite her silver-gray hair, Ian, rather startled, thought she looked like a girl.
“Okwaho, iahtahtehkonah,” the Sachem said, seeing Ian. He smiled broadly, looking at Jenny. “Your mother is deadly.”
“If ye mean with a pistol, I expect so,” Ian replied, slightly squint-eyed. “She’s no bad wi’ a hatpin, either—should anyone give her cause.”
The Sachem laughed, and while Jenny didn’t, she sniffed in a way that indicated amusement. She arched a brow at Ian, turned—and then turned back, having seen something in his face.
“What’s happened?” she said, her own face changing in an instant.
He told them, briefly. It occurred to him that the old Sachem was not only Thayendanegea’s uncle but plainly had influence with him.
The Sachem didn’t interrupt or ask questions, and preserved an attitude of respectful attention, but Ian thought he found the account entertaining. As he brought the story to an end, though, it occurred to him also that the Sachem very likely knew Gabriel Hardman well and might feel loyalty toward him.
His mother had been thoughtfully cleaning her pistol while he spoke, ramming a cloth down the barrel with its tiny ramrod. Now she put the pistol back in her belt, folded the stained cloth, and tucked it into the cartridge box.
“We had a wager, did we not?” she asked the Sachem. He rocked back a little on his heels, a smile still lurking in the corners of his mouth.
“We did.”
“And ye admit that I won, I suppose. You bein’ an honest man?”
The smile grew plain.
“I cannot say otherwise. What forfeit do you demand?”
Jenny nodded in the direction of the house. “That you go with my friend Silvia, to talk with Mr. Brant. And that you see justice done,” she added, in the manner of an afterthought.
“You didn’t win by that much,” the Sachem said, with mild reproach. “But since she’s your friend, clearly you will go with her wherever she goes. And as you are also my friend—are you?” he interrupted himself, lifting one white brow.
“If it’ll make ye go with her, aye,” Jenny said impatiently.
“I will go with you,” the Sachem said, bowing. “Wherever you wish to go.”
THIS EXCHANGE DISTURBED Ian, but he hadn’t time to do more than give the Sachem a brief “trouble my mother and I’ll gut ye like a fish” look on his way to the barn. His mother caught the look and appeared to think it funny, though the Sachem kept a decently straight face.
Silvia was indeed in the barn, with the skewbald gelding named Henry that she’d ridden from Philadelphia, leaning against his warm bulk, face buried in her arms, as he calmly plucked mouthfuls of hay from a hanging net and chewed with a comforting, slobbery sound. The horse’s saddle and bridle lay on the ground at her feet.
Silvia looked up at the sound of Ian’s footsteps. Her face was blotched with weeping, her cap askew, and her limp brown hair uncoiled on one side and hanging down beside her ear, but she bent at once to seize the bridle from the ground at her feet.
“I was—was waiting—he was eating, I couldn’t bridle him while—” She gestured helplessly at Henry’s tack and the slowly champing jaws.
“And where d’ye intend going?” Ian asked politely, though that was clear enough. The question focused Silvia’s mind, though, and she drew herself upright, eyes bleared but fierce.
“To get my girls and take them away. Will thee help me?”
“And go where, lass?” Ian reached for the bridle, but she clung to it, desperate.
“Away!” she said. “It doesn’t matter, I’ll find a place!”
“Rachel said ye thought of taking the matter to Thayendanegea.”
“I did, yes. I was trying to decide,” she said, placing a hand on the horse’s neck. “Whether to wait for his return and ask for his judgment between me and Gabriel—or ride to the inn, fetch the girls, and run.” She was breathing like a runaway horse herself, and now stopped to mop her face and swallow. “If I waited—Gabriel might get help to pursue us, and should he catch us … I—I doubt I could prevent his taking the girls from me. And … what if Brant should take Gabriel’s side?” A belated thought struck her.
“Do the Mohawk believe that children are the property of the father?”
“No,” Ian said calmly. “If a woman puts her husband out of her house, or he leaves, her bairns stay with her.”
“Oh.” She sat down suddenly on the saddle and raised a trembling hand to tuck back the dangling hair. “Oh. Then perhaps …?”
“Perhaps it’s no Thayendanegea’s business,” Ian said matter-of-factly. “What goes on between a man and his wife is … what goes on between a man and his wife, unless it’s causin’ a stramash that bothers other folk. I mean, if ye shot your husband, that might cause a bit of a nuisance, but I dinna suppose ye mean to do that, bein’ a Friend and all.”
“Oh,” she said again. She sat for a bit, staring at the hay-strewn ground between her feet, and he let her sit.